Unverified Voracity Yells At Grandma

"Confirmation." Rodriguez was pinged at last weekend's Women's Football Academy about Dann O'Neill. The Free Press reports back:

Rodriguez confirmed that offensive lineman Dann O’Neill has left the program, but he wasn’t sure whether O’Neill will transfer to another school.

So… confirmed, eh? Which sort of implies the existence of a report that O'Neill has departed, eh? Where might this report be? I'm curious as to when a newspaper will credit something other than another newspaper for breaking a story.

Other items:

If the elder Grady gets his probation together and so forth and so on he'll remain on the team:

“He’s still working out with the guys,” Rodriguez said. “I’ve gotten the details from him and researched it a little bit . Kevin has taken care of some of (those) responsibilities, and the rest of that is up to him. If he does everything, come Aug. 9, when we start camp, he’ll rejoin us.”

FWIW, Grady's father went on WTKA and asserted that the newspaper reports of what, exactly, he didn't complete were erroneous and the slip-up was considerably more minor. I don't have strong feelings one way or the other about Grady staying on the team.

Rodriguez said there was only one freshman in danger of not qualifying. Sam Webb asserted that Fitzgerald Toussaint was good to go, which leaves Jeremy Gallon squarely in the crosshairs of that comment. (There were rumors that Adrian Witty was also a potential casualty, but since we know Gallon has a point or two to get it's easy to infer Witty has cleared the bar. Justin Turner's situation is apparently not a big deal.)

Speaking of that Women's Academy, while it didn't turn up anything equivalent to last year's legendary squat 'n' scream…

…Rivals does have some entertaining pictures. Here's Greg Robinson not getting the spirit of the thing:

Busts past. I was reading the good Doctor's Auburn preview when I ran across a name from the past:

As bad as those two [Kodi Burns and Chris Todd] were, career backup Neil Caudle only got on the field for five snaps against Tennessee-Martin -- yet he left the spring in a virtual dead heat with Burns to be No. 1. If we also assume Rollison can run, his arm might be worth a flier in case of another slow start.

Caudle was at Michigan's camp at the same time as David Cone, who apparently outperformed him and another high-profile quarterback. At the time this was encouraging; now it's apparent it said more about Caudle than Cone. Take it from a guy who witnessed Todd's painfully looping throws in the flesh: if you couldn't get on the field for Auburn last year, you were bad.

Also, that Rollison guy is Tyrik, who hardcore recruitniks may remember as the guy who played opposite Shavodrick Beaver in a game televised by ESPN. He had virtually no offers—Baylor might have been his best—until very, very late, when Auburn took a flier and got a commitment. This obviously meant JUCO, but somehow the guy qualified. Many teams will be kicking themselves if Rollison lives up to the hype. And manages to stay in school.

Yes, fair enough. Conversations about Rodriguez's recruiting this year usually go something like this:

Person One: I am concerned the class is filling up with players with low ratings and unimpressive offers.

Person Two: But Rodriguez dominated doofuses in the Big East with crappy classes!

That's an expletive, ad-hominem free version of events but you get the idea. The WLA takes issue with that latter hypothesis, because it is their job to find any optimism related to Michigan football and stamp it out:

Let’s look at how WVU recruited compared to their primary competition: fellow teams in the Big East:

Looking at those results, it’s difficult to argue that West Virginia suffered any tangible talent deficit to it’s fellow Big East teams. … while WVU’s classes full of two andthree-star talent seems poor when put into the context of major college football, it was actually an above-average result when put into the context of their conference.

Okay, point taken, but counterpoints: West Virginia was most certainly at a huge talent deficit relative to Georgia and Oklahoma, and once you start getting into the area where you're pulling hairs between the #27 and #37 classes the gradation is way flatter than it is at the tippy top; West Virginia dominated a conference in which they had virtually equal talent to everyone else, and even if Michigan's class comes in a little disappointing this year it's still virtually guaranteed to be third at worst. This is coming off a horrendous year and should improve in the future. The argument that Rodriguez can take his and beat yours, then take yours and beat his, is one with significant data backing it up.

My experience is, this is not unusual. My freshmen year, there were plenty of departures and not much was made of it (although there was no internet at the time): Bud Gehrig, Chuck Adams, Rick Masters, Ernie Holloway, Dan Holloway, and a few others.
Gehrig was a beast coming out of DeLaSalle and highly recruited.

"the Spirit of Michigan...is based on a deathless loyalty to Michigan and all her ways....and a conviction that nowhere is there a better university, in any way, than this Michigan of ours" - Fielding Yost

I had one additional point in mind in my thing, that should probably have been said:

Rodriguez has shown that he can out-recruit his counterparts on a consistent basis - hence his superior classes at WVU to the rest of the Big East, and hence the two excellent classes he's pulled in so far at Michigan. So...he generally doesn't NEED to overcome a talent disparity. That's a good thing.

The Georgia/Oklahoma games are data-points, but also "sample-size", etc. If you start isolating individual data points for the positive, it come back and bite you in the ass, like:

"Losing to an inferior Pitt team at home with a MNC game appearance on the line."

and

"Losing to an inferior USF team for two consecutive years, once at home."

If we're going to claim that Oklahoma/Georgia is proof that the RR wins with inferior talent, then what do the two games I just mentioned say?

is that WVU did not have a talent surplus or deficit WRT other BEast teams in the top half of the conference. he pretty clearly had the best results of any BEast team over those last 5-6 years than anyone else. and he did it with about the same amount of talent.

1.) A pessimist is just an optimistic realist who has been around the block a few times. I think nothing but great thoughts for UM, but, come on, as a fan all my life, I know that the fall of 2009 will have a couple heart breaking moments. Knowing that in advance, rather than drinking any MNC or bust kool aid, has made me a more sane fan in my adulthood. You call it stamping out optimism, I just call it being a realist.

2.) Interestingly, the WLA gets accused of being RR apologists during the season. Now, they're optimistism snipers. Which is it? Does the WLA even know themselves?

3.)Here is where the WLA is coming from as I, one if its foot soldiers, see it: We think RR will be a smashing success. But, half these wild eyed optimists will indeed shit on him when his Year 2, lead by a scrawny true freshmen QB, gets away from him and, God Forbid, a 4 or even 5 or even 6 loss season ensures. The WLA feels making a bowl is a GREAT season for the 2009 outfit, but how many folks who are a-gog with Tate really believe that. The goal has been to re-set evreryone's expectations in the short term, so we can enjoy a long term football revolution under Comrade Rodriguez.

For example, some Nozzle at the gym the other day, saw my UM shirt and said if they dont do better this year he will ring the coaches neck. You should win at least 10 games every year at UM, no questions asked, he opined.....this is the type of behavior we are looking to curtail in the event RR does not land us in Pasadena this season.

Many of the same concerns going into last season still exist going into this season. New defensive coordinator, concerns on the defense's performance, particularly the LB's and DB's, and yet again, a freshman with zero college experience starting at QB.

The differences of a year with Barwis and the new offense should be worth something, but I agree that any bowl would be a great accomplishment by RR. And 9 or more wins should get him coach of the year consideration.

i dont really have a problem with the thing brian quoted (although i dont completely agree with it either - and i find the whole 3 star debate kinda silly, especially when it's june and the kids haven't been to camps or played their senior years yet), but suffice it to say the blog lately has a lot of "here's why person x or meme y is wrong and and idiotic" posts and hey, i loved fjm too, but those get kinda old

it's your blog, do what you want, but i enjoyed it more when it was more original content and less heavyhanded internet police

I suspect there will be much less "internet policing" once the season is closer at hand/underway. There are many of us who lack the wherewithal to come up with original content during the off-season due to other responsibilities that actually, you know, pay the bills. The few who contribute regularly- aside from dick jokes on Uniscorn- do their best. A bit of that takes the form of reactionary posts to the negativity perceived by GBMW and others who we see as decidedly anti-RR.

I am by far the greatest proponent of Rich Rodriguez and his Whacko Ninja Offense, and yet don't see the point in running continual content on how badass I think we will be in the next few seasons. I guess our point, as Jamie Mac made clear, is to take a realistic view of not only U of M fandom but fandom in general. You may take it as negative, we see it as trying to temper the expectations that made much of the past 15 years a horror story for us all.

I'm I wrong in thinking that the attrition that we're now seeing is a bit different from the attrition of yesteryear?

RR and his staff seem to be fairly direct and honest, possibly even to a point where a kid sees the "writing on the wall" much earlier in his playing career than under Lloyd's watch. This can only help from a macro overall team talent standpoint as quicker turns of guys that won't pan out only bring in new players/opportunities for success a year or two earlier.

Does that make any sense?

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” - Benjamin Franklin

I agree with that. Although I'm never "in favor" of kids leaving the team, it benefits both the player and the team if it is diagnosed early that a particular kid isn't going to see the field. It gives the kid an opportunity to still have a successful college football career, and it gives the team the opportunity to fill his spot with a kid who may contribute.

That being said, if RR or a member of his staff tells a kid he likely won't see the field, I think that kid has the right to stick around if he wants to.

I think if a kid is told he's unlikely to see the field but he wants to stay and continues to work, that's the kind of guy RR and his staff have no problem having around. Can even set a good example for other players if there's some guys around who basically have no chance of playing but are still busting their asses in practice and workouts.

As long as they're just giving it to the players straight and not telling them to leave/yanking scholarships, it's definitely a good thing for the coaches to be honest with the guys.

"This is the EMU game, not the emo game."

I absolutely agree with your last comment. I would also be very upset if he pushed a good kid who does what is asked of him out the door. Maybe I'm just an optimist but I don't see that being the case.

Where in LA do you live? I'm in MBeach.

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” - Benjamin Franklin

Funny you ask...this past weekend I moved in with my girlfriend. I was living in Hermosa for the last 2 and half years, and now her and I are living in Koreatown, on Wilshire and Vermont. We both work downtown, so it's super convenient.

I think the other part is that the workouts and practices are more demanding under RR. It seems to me that if you're unlikely to play ever, if you don't really, really love football it would be hard to continue on.

The shirt may appear to say "squirels"...but it is NOT misspelled. No self-respecting Michigan grad would don a t-shirt with poor spelling. Hope that clears up the WTF comment, unless you don't understand the shirt itself, in which case...it's a joke among a group of participants who like to make t-shirts when we get together once in a very long while. That is all.

I would pay good money to watch Mr. Tough Guy try that nonsense with Barwis. The ensuing pant-crapping would be worth every penny.

agree with everything else jmac said. Anything less than 5 losses would a tremendous achievement with this team. The other two times we've started a season with a pure freshman QB (Leach '75 and Henne '04) we've been legitimately loaded with proven talent. Four of Leach's OLs — Downing, Donahue, Dufek, and Kenn—went on to play in the NFL. Henne had Baas, Long, Breaston, Avant, and Braylon to work with. How many guys on the current team can we look at and say, yep, he's got NFL written all over him?

Perhaps self-congratulation for breaking the Dann O'Neill departure should be a little more muted. According to my source, at the time this blog broke the story, it was not a done deal with all concerned (although I did not talk to Dann and have don't know what he told people). Just food for thought in the race to scoop the MSM.

Have you ever read this site before you joined to post this? I'm genuinely curious whether you read what was originally posted here. It may be that it wasn't a 'done deal' with the coaching staff, but it was for O'Neill. I'll hang up and listen...

We're not. I'm not sure what Brian is talking about. We don't think we're going 8-4 this year. I don't count that as "pessimistic". We think RR is the right coach, and that the program is going in the right direction.

Brian - I believe the other QB Cone outplayed (in addition to Caudle) was Pat Devlin, who did nothing at Penn State before transferring to Delaware. Much like Caudle's situation, this makes Cone's "outplaying of highly touted guys" performance look significantly worse.

I'm not worried about this three star thing. First off, it's just June so there is a lot of recruiting time left. Second off guys can improve their senior seasons and improve their rankings. It also seems to me that a lot of the three star guys we have signed are sleeper type guys that can explode this year and significantly improve their rankings.